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Watching Fernando Alonso take his second victory of the 2010 season, one couldn't help but experience a sense of deja vu. Remember Rubens Barrichello slowing right down at the 2002 Austrian Grand Prix in order to allow Michael Schumacher to go by and take first place? Well, after that race Schumi let Rubens stand on the top step of the podium, essentially making a show of the whole thing, but with Fernando and Felipe on the rostrum, it was a different tale altogether. At the post race press conference as well, when asked whether he made a mistake, Felipe's response was "He (Alonso) passed me." Of course, following the race, Ferrari were fined 100,000 dollars for issuing team orders. But the results stood - Fernando was first and Felipe was second. People seemed to have forgotten that Sebastien Vettel was third that race.
So how did the race turn out like that? Well, Seb Vettel was on pole, but somehow wasn't able to hold on to his lead. He was so busy fending off a hard charging Fernando Alonso, that he didn't quite notice Massa sneak up behind them and pass him on the outside on the run up to Turn 1. The top three then managed to open up a gap to the rest of the field that was headed by Lewis Hamilton.
After the round of pitstops, Alonso began to catch up with his Ferrari team-mate, and Massa probably was feeling the heat a little. He managed to start opening up the gap to Alonso again, though, before his race engineer, Rob Smedley came on the radio and said those few words that ended Massa's hopes of a race win. "Fernando is faster than you. Confirm you understand." And apparently Massa did, because victory at the end went to Fernando Alonso. Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button finished in fourth and fifth, ahead of Red Bull Racing's Mark Webber.
Nico Rosberg and Michael Schumacher finished eighth and ninth, putting both Mercedes cars in the points.
Drivers' Standings
1 Lewis Hamilton 157
2 Jenson Button 143
3 Sebastian Vettel 136
4 Mark Webber 136
5 Fernando Alonso 123
6 Nico Rosberg 94
7 Robert Kubica 89
8 Felipe Massa 85
9 Michael Schumacher 38
10 Adrian Sutil 35
11 Rubens Barrichello 29
12 Kamui Kobayashi 15
13 Vitantonio Liuzzi 12
14 Sebastien Buemi 7
15 Vitaly Petrov 7
16 Jaime Alguersuari 3
17 Nico Hulkenberg 2
18 Jarno Trulli 0
19 Heikki Kovalainen 0
20 Karun Chandhok 0
21 Bruno Senna 0
22 Timo Glock 0
23 Lucas di Grassi 0
24 Pedro de la Rosa 0
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